Dietland by Sarai Walker | Black Inc.

Dietland: A Novel

Book club notes

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About the author

Sarai Walker

Sarai Walker received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Bennington College. As a magazine writer, her articles appeared in national publications, including Seventeen and Mademoiselle. She subsequently served as an editor and writer …

More about Sarai Walker



Praise for Dietland

‘Sarai Walker has written a call to arms. Devious, subversive, delightful, Dietland is a SCUM Manifesto set to a pop music beat and Plum Kettle is a feminist hero for the modern age.’ —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones

Dietland is a book I have been waiting for someone to write all my life, and it hit me hard right where I live, right where so many of us have wasted too much time living.  It's courageous, compassionate, intelligent, pissed off and much more fun than it has any right to be.  I can think of twenty people I want to buy it for, without even trying.’ —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted

 

‘This audacious debut from a New York writer will certainly spark debate at book club.’ —West Australian

 

‘Sarai Walker is an immensely talented writer and her debut novel, Dietland—filled with wit, wisdom and wonder—is a pleasure.’ —Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life

 

‘Part Fight Club, part feminist manifesto, an offbeat and genre-bending novel that aims high—and delivers.’ —Kirkus Review

 

‘As a social commentary, Dietland is no shrill tirade. Ms Walker captures the misery of failing to fit in, to fit into the right clothes, to fit in with the right people and their expectations.’ —Economist

 

‘A giddy revenge fantasy that will shake up your thinking and burrow under your skin, no matter its size. 4.5 stars.’ —Who Weekly

‘An absolute must-read!’ —Cosmopolitan

 

‘The first rule of Dietland is you should definitely talk about Dietland. And I suspect you’ll want to. Gather your book clubs, gather all the Jennifers you know! At first you’ll think you’re reading a familiar story: a woman who works at a women’s magazine tries to lose weight. And then POW! Dietland lithely moves in ways and to places you won’t expect. Sarai Walker has a wonderfully curious mind, and this is an impressive, ambitious first novel.’ —Gabrielle Zevin, bestselling author of The Storied Life of AJ Fikry 

 

‘Sarai Walker's audacious, hilarious-yet surprisingly touching-novel begins by spoofing the weightloss industry and moves on to a devastating fantasy in which an avenger known as 'Jennifer' targets men who prey on women. Through it all marches Plum, a fat woman who learns to love herself as she is, and whom I loved at all stages of her education. Keenly intelligent, daring, and original, Dietland has something important to say to us all.’—Alice Mattison, author of When We Argued All Night and The Book Borrower